Portraits: Jeline Catt

Memories continue to linger, to persist within us though people are gone, places are abandoned, and priorities change.

At seven, I felt what it was like to truly lose anyone for the first time. After a day of play, we were summoned in the living room only to be told that my grandfather – generous, silent, and kind – finally joined our Creator. His suffering was no more, but the pain touched all of us. I saw it in my grandmother’s eyes, I felt it in her touch. Her love was gone. Who was she to serve, to nurture?

At seventeen, after fleeing from the worst storm that’s ever hit the city – in my life time – I saw my mother tearily get reunited with my father after being separated for hours trying to save us from our house filled with filthy, murky rain water. Wedding photographs, vintage vinyls, film compact discs were no more.

I woke up panicking when I heard the rain fall for the first time after the storm. I was alone, and the trauma was still with me. It stayed for a long time.

–

Thank you to this incredible set of people who brought my dream shoot to life. This place may have lost its luster and its grandeur but the memories continue to stay.

Elisa Aquino

Elisa Aquino is a portrait photographer, life(style) writer, passion blogger, and beauty rookie from Manila, Philippines. This platform exists to document her daily musings and to showcase the life-changing power of grace to transform women from ashes to beauty.

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